Part 1, Story 1: Trump Plans For Islamic State — No More Nation Building and No More Policemen of The World — Extreme Vetting Of Immigrants –War of Civilizations — The West vs. Radical Islam — A New Hot War — Let The Games Begin –Greatest Foreign Policy Speech of Any Candidate in Over 50 Years — A+ Must Viewing — Videos

“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world”

~George Washington’s Farewell Address

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none.”

Edward Said The Last Interview 2003

Christopher Hitchens – The Axis of Evil revisited [2009]

Christopher Hitchens — Clash of civilizations (2009)

Christopher Hitchens on Iran and Iranians

Christopher Hitchens on Barack Obama

On The Day Christopher Hitchens died

Fact-checking Donald Trump’s ‘major’ speech on the Islamic State

By Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee August 16 at 3:00 AM

Donald Trump traveled to Youngstown, Ohio, to deliver what was billed as a “major” speech on how to deal with the threat posed by the Islamic State terrorist group, a.k.a. ISIS. For reasons known only to Trump, he continued to repeat false statements that have been repeatedly debunked in the past. So here’s a roundup of some of the more notable claims made in the speech. As is our practice, we don’t award Pinocchios in roundups, but readers by now should be able to tell the real whoppers.

“This summer there’s been an ISIS attack launched outside the war zones of the Middle East — hard to believe — every 84 hours.”

This number comes from IntelCenter, a private counterterrorism intelligence company, but the time frame that Trump uses is cherry-picked.

The group’s data from June 8 to July 20, 2016, have gotten attention for the number of terrorist attacks directed or inspired by ISIS: one attack every 84 hours. That’s why Trump says that’s how many attacks there have been “this summer,” though the data cover approximately six weeks of the summer so far. CNN reported that the group’s count mirrors the outlet’s tracking data, but it’s just a brief snapshot.

IntelCenter has tracked attacks since the Islamic State announced its “caliphate” in June 2014. Since then, there have been 76 attacks in 21 countries, killing 966 and injuring 2,812, the website says. Those data cover June 29, 2014, to Aug. 6, 2016. That means there were about three attacks every month over the 26 months covered by the data.

“The rise of ISIS is the direct result of policy decisions made by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.”

This is false and facile. The terrorist group is the direct result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, as we explored in our interview with Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his book on the rise of the Islamic State. (Trump, of course, supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003.) At best, one could argue that actions that Obama failed to take (over Clinton’s opposition) helped contribute to the growth of ISIS.

“Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, is now flush with $150 billion in cash released by the United States.”

Trump always makes it sound like this is U.S. taxpayer money —and he always uses a too-high estimate. Because of international sanctions over its nuclear program, Iran had billions of dollars in assets that were frozen in foreign banks around the globe. With sanctions lifted, in theory those funds would be unlocked.

But the Treasury Department has estimated that once Iran fulfills other obligations, it would have about $55 billion left. (Much of the other money was obligated to illiquid projects in China.) For its part, the Central Bank of Iran said the number was actually $32 billion, not $55 billion.

“It all began in 2009 with what has become known as President Obama’s global ‘Apology Tour.’”

Trump resurrects an old — and discredited — Republican talking point. His prepared text even cited an April 2009 article written by Karl Rove as its source. As we demonstrated more than five years ago, Rove took Obama’s quotes out of context and twisted their meaning in order to build a tendentious case. The whole notion of an Obama apology tour was a fiction from the start — and was worthy of Four Pinocchios.

“It all began in 2009 with what has become known as President Obama’s global ‘Apology Tour.’”

in a speech – Monday, August 15, 2016

“The failures in Iraq were compounded by Hillary Clinton’s disaster in Libya. President Obama has since said he regards Libya as his worst mistake.”

First of all, Trump was a fervent advocate of intervening in Libya. On a video uncovered by BuzzFeed, Trump declared in 2011: “Gaddafi in Libya is killing thousands of people. Nobody knows how bad it is, and we’re sitting around. We have soldiers all over the Middle East, and we’re not bringing them in to stop this horrible carnage, and that’s what it is: It’s a carnage …. Now, we should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick.”

Second, Trump misquotes Obama. In the quote cited by the Trump campaign, Obama said that intervening was “the right thing to do.” What he regretted as his worst mistake was failing to plan for “the day after.”

“I was an opponent of the Iraq War from the beginning — a major difference between me and my opponent.”

What will it take for Trump to just admit that he had supported the Iraq invasion before he opposed it, after the invasion already took place? This is yet another Four Pinocchio claim.

There is no sign that Trump made headlines about his vocal Iraq War stance in 2003, nor that Trump clearly opposed the Iraq War prior to the invasion. We compiled a complete timeline of his comments leading up to the invasion and found that his comments were not “loud,” “clear” nor in “headlines” as he repeatedly claimed on the campaign trail.

Yet Trump continues to use this line, even though numerous news outlets have debunked it. This time, Trump cherry-picked his own quote to back up his claim: “Three months before the invasion, I said in an interview with Neil Cavuto … that perhaps we shouldn’t be doing it yet. And that the economy is a much bigger problem.”

He was referring to a January 2003 interview on Fox Business, about two months before the invasion. During it, Trump gave a lukewarm reaction to the Iraq invasion and urged then-President George W. Bush to make a decision. Below is the context for that claim. As readers can see, Trump did not weigh in on whether the United States should attack or not (“either you attack or you don’t attack”).

Cavuto: If you had to sort of break down for the president, if you were advising him, how much time do you commit to Iraq versus how much time you commit to the economy, what would you say?Trump: Well, I’m starting to think that people are much more focused now on the economy. They are getting a little bit tired of hearing, we’re going in, we’re not going in, the — you know, whatever happened to the days of the Douglas MacArthur. He would go and attack. He wouldn’t talk. We have to — you know, it’s sort like either do it or don’t do it. When I watch Dan Rather explaining how we are going to be attacking, where we’re going to attack, what routes we’re taking, what kind of planes we’re using, how to stop them, how to stop us, it is a little bit disconcerting. I’ve never seen this, where newscasters are telling you how — telling the enemy how we’re going about it, we have just found out this and that. It is ridiculous.Cavuto: Well, the problem right there.Trump: Either you attack or you don’t attack.Cavuto: The problem there, Donald, is you’re watching Dan Rather. Maybe you should just be watching Fox.Trump: Well, no, I watch Dan Rather, but not necessarily fondly. But I happened to see it the other night. And I must tell you it was rather amazing as they were explaining the different — I don’t know if it is fact or if it is fiction, but the concept of a newscaster talking about the routes is — just seems ridiculous. So the point is either you do it or you don’t do it, or you — but I just — or if you don’t do it, just don’t talk about it. When you do it, you start talking about it.Cavuto: So you’re saying the leash on this is getting kind of short here, that the president has got to do something presumably sooner rather than later and stringing this along could ultimately hurt us.Trump: Well, he has either got to do something or not do something, perhaps, because perhaps shouldn’t be doing it yet and perhaps we should be waiting for the United Nations, you know. He’s under a lot of pressure. He’s — I think he’s doing a very good job. But, of course, if you look at the polls, a lot of people are getting a little tired. I think the Iraqi situation is a problem. And I think the economy is a much bigger problem as far as the president is concerned.

“I was an opponent of the Iraq War from the beginning — a major difference between me and my opponent.”

in a speech – Monday, August 15, 2016

“In August of 2004, very early, right after the conflict, I made a detailed statement to Esquire magazine in an interview [opposing the invasion].”

Trump clearly was outspoken about his opposition to the Iraq War starting in 2004, the year he reportedly considered a presidential bid. (Instead, he launched his popular TV series, “The Apprentice.”) Trump did sharply criticize the war in Iraq in the August 2004 cover story of Esquire magazine. But this was nearly 18 months after the invasion in March 2003.

Trump also has pointed several times to a July 2004 Reuters article as proof he opposed the war from the outset. The Reuters article is a preview of the August 2004 Esquire cover story. Somehow, in Trump’s mind, 2004 has turned into 2003, and Trump now says he “was against the war from the very beginning,” even prior to the March 2003 invasion.

“But I have been just as clear in saying what a catastrophic mistake Hillary Clinton and President Obama made with the reckless way in which they pulled out.”

Trump criticizes the 2011 withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, saying Obama “got us out the wrong way.” But Trump supported rapid withdrawal as early as March 2007, saying the United States should “declare victory and leave.” So once again Trump criticizes Obama and Clinton for taking action he advocated.

“I have long said that we should have kept the oil in Iraq.”

This is nonsensical. The Bush administration invested a lot of diplomatic effort in assuring Middle Eastern allies that the United States was not invading because of Iraq’s oil fields. Moreover, oil revenue was crucial to ensuring a functioning Iraqi state — which is why insurgents often targeted the oil sector in Iraq.

In any event, seizing the oil of a sovereign nation after invading it would be considered a “grave breach” of the Geneva Conventions, one of the cornerstones of international law, as well as other international agreements. Maybe Trump’s staff should arrange a tutorial on international law.

“I had previously said that NATO was obsolete because it failed to deal adequately with terrorism. Since my comments, they have changed their policy and now have a new division focused on terror threats.”

NATO has disputed Trump’s repeated claim that NATO created a new assistant secretary general for intelligence because of his critique. “There’s no connection to any national election campaign,”NATO said, noting that the post had been under consideration several years before Trump began saying the organization was obsolete. NATO first committed to increased counterterrorism activities at a summit in Wales in 2012.

“Unlike Hillary Clinton, who has risked so many lives with her careless handling of sensitive information, my administration will not telegraph exactly military plans and what they are.”

Tellingly, Trump’s prepared text offered no footnote for this claim. There is little evidence that Clinton disclosed military plans through use of a private email server for State Department communications.

There indeed was sensitive information in Clinton’s emails, as the FBI found in its investigation into her use of her private server. Some of the emails were in reference to specific drone strikes being planned, the Wall Street Journal reported. But Trump exaggerates to say they “telegraph exactly military plans and what they are.”

Rather, these were vaguely worded emails forwarded by Clinton’s aides to her private email account. The Journal reported that the emails “were written within the often-narrow time frame in which State Department officials had to decide whether or not to object to drone strikes before the CIA pulled the trigger, officials said. Law-enforcement and intelligence officials said State Department deliberations about the covert CIA drone program should have been conducted over a more secure government computer system designed to handle classified information.”

“We admit about 100,000 permanent immigrants from the Middle East every year.”

Trump overstates the figure here. The number of people seeking lawful permanent resident status (“a green card”) adds up to about 76,000 people if you include the Arab countries in the Levant, Persian Gulf and North Africa, according to 2014 Department of Homeland Security figures.

You get to around 100,000 only by including Afghanistan and Pakistan, which of course are outside the traditional “Middle East.” Other Muslim countries, such as Indonesia (2,139) and Somalia (5,190), do not significantly add to the total.

“The United States subcommittee on Immigration estimates that Hillary Clinton’s plan would mean roughly 620,000 refugees from all current refugee-sending nations in her first term, assuming no cuts to other refugee programs.”

This figure stems from the unverified assumption that Clinton, who has called for 55,000 additional refugees from Syria, would continue at that pace for every year of her first term, on top of the Obama administration’s proposal for 100,000 refugees for fiscal year 2017. The committee then multiples 155,000 times four years to reach 620,000 refugees. Clinton has never proposed such a “plan,” so this is an invented figure. Clinton only has proposed an increase of 55,000 refugees for one year.

“A neighbor saw suspicious behavior. Bombs on the floor and other things, but didn’t warn authorities because they said they didn’t want to be accused of racial profiling.”

There is no evidence this was the case. There have been unconfirmed second- or third-hand reports— a friend of a friend of a neighbor — that a neighbor claimed to have noticed suspicious activity but did not report anything for fear of doing racial profiling. The religion of this supposed neighbor is unknown, but presumably a fear of racial profiling would suggest the neighbor was not Muslim.

Trump ad-libbed the phrase about “bombs on the floor.” Even the secondhand reports don’t suggest a neighbor saw “bombs on the floor” — just that they received numerous packages at their home and were in their garage late at night.

The phrase itself was earlier used by Albert Camus in 1946,[3] and by Bernard Lewis in an article in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly titled “The Roots of Muslim Rage”.[4]Even earlier, the phrase appears in a 1926 book regarding the Middle East by Basil Mathews: Young Islam on Trek: A Study in the Clash of Civilizations (p. 196).

This expression derives from “clash of cultures,” already used during the colonial period and the Belle Époque.[5]

Overview

Huntington began his thinking by surveying the diverse theories about the nature of global politics in the post-Cold War period. Some theorists and writers argued that human rights,liberal democracy, and the capitalist free market economy had become the only remaining ideological alternative for nations in the post-Cold War world. Specifically, Francis Fukuyama argued that the world had reached the ‘end of history‘ in a Hegelian sense.

Huntington believed that while the age of ideology had ended, the world had only reverted to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict. In his thesis, he argued that the primary axis of conflict in the future will be along cultural and religious lines.[6]

As an extension, he posits that the concept of different civilizations, as the highest rank of cultural identity, will become increasingly useful in analyzing the potential for conflict.

In the 1993 Foreign Affairs article, Huntington writes “The Clash of Civilizations?” At the end of the article, he writes:

This is not to advocate the desirability of conflicts between civilizations. It is to set forth descriptive hypothesis as to what the future may be like.[2]

In addition, the clash of civilizations, for Huntington, represents a development of history. In the past, world history was mainly about the struggles between monarchs, nations and ideologies, such as seen within Western civilization. But after the end of the Cold War, world politics moved into a new phase, in which non-Western civilizations are no longer the exploited recipients of Western civilization but have become additional important actors joining the West to shape and move world history.[7]

Major civilizations according to Huntington

The clash of civilizations according to Huntington (1996), as presented in the book.[8]

Huntington divided the world into the “major civilizations” in his thesis as such:

Western civilization, comprising the United States and Canada, Western and Central Europe, Australia and Oceania. Whether Latin America and the former member states of the Soviet Union are included, or are instead their own separate civilizations, will be an important future consideration for those regions, according to Huntington. The traditional Western viewpoint identified Western Civilization with the Western Christian (Catholic–Protestant) countries and culture.[9]

Instead of belonging to one of the “major” civilizations, Ethiopia and Haiti are labeled as “Lone” countries. Israel could be considered a unique state with its own civilization, Huntington writes, but one which is extremely similar to the West. Huntington also believes that the Anglophone Caribbean, former British colonies in the Caribbean, constitutes a distinct entity.

There are also others which are considered “cleft countries” because they contain very large groups of people identifying with separate civilizations. Examples include India (“cleft” between its Hindu majority and large Muslim minority), Ukraine (“cleft” between its Eastern Rite Catholic-dominated western section and its Orthodox-dominated east), France (cleft between Latin America, in the case of French Guiana; and the West), Benin, Chad,Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Togo (all cleft between Islam and Sub-Saharan Africa), Guyana and Suriname (cleft between Hindu and Sub-Saharan African), Sri Lanka (cleft between Hindu and Buddhist), China (cleft between Sinic and Buddhist, in the case of Tibet; and the West, in the case of Hong Kong and Macau), and the Philippines (cleft between Islam, in the case of Mindanao; Sinic, and the West). Sudan was also included as “cleft” between Islam and Sub-Saharan Africa; this division became a formal split in July 2011 following an overwhelming vote for independence by South Sudan in a January 2011 referendum.

Huntington’s thesis of civilizational clash

Russia and India are what Huntington terms ‘swing civilizations’ and may favor either side. Russia, for example, clashes with the many Muslim ethnic groups on its southern border (such as Chechnya) but—according to Huntington—cooperates with Iran to avoid further Muslim-Orthodox violence in Southern Russia, and to help continue the flow of oil. Huntington argues that a “Sino-Islamic connection” is emerging in which China will cooperate more closely with Iran, Pakistan, and other states to augment its international position.

Huntington also argues that civilizational conflicts are “particularly prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims”, identifying the “bloody borders” between Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations. This conflict dates back as far as the initial thrust of Islam into Europe, its eventual expulsion in the Iberian reconquest and the attacks of the OttomanTurks on Eastern Europe and Vienna. Huntington also believes that some of the factors contributing to this conflict are that both Christianity (which has deeply influenced Western civilization) and Islam are:

Missionary religions, seeking conversion of others

Universal, “all-or-nothing” religions, in the sense that it is believed by both sides that only their faith is the correct one

Teleological religions, that is, that their values and beliefs represent the goals of existence and purpose in human existence.

Religions that perceive irreligious people who violate the base principles of those religions to be furthering their own pointless aims, which leads to violent interactions.

More recent factors contributing to a Western-Islamic clash, Huntington wrote, are the Islamic Resurgence and demographic explosion in Islam, coupled with the values of Western universalism—that is, the view that all civilizations should adopt Western values—that infuriate Islamic fundamentalists. All these historical and modern factors combined, Huntington wrote briefly in his Foreign Affairs article and in much more detail in his 1996 book, would lead to a bloody clash between the Islamic and Western civilizations. The political party Hizb ut-Tahrir also reiterate Huntington’s views in their published book, The Inevitability of Clash of Civilisation.[10]

Why Civilizations will Clash

Huntington offers six explanations for why civilizations will clash:

Differences among civilizations are too basic in that civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition, and, most important, religion. These fundamental differences are the product of centuries, so they will not soon disappear.

The world is becoming a smaller place. As a result, interactions across the world are increasing, which intensify “civilization consciousness” and the awareness of differences between civilizations and commonalities within civilizations.

Due to economic modernization and social change, people are separated from longstanding local identities. Instead, religion has replaced this gap, which provides a basis for identity and commitment that transcends national boundaries and unites civilizations.

The growth of civilization-consciousness is enhanced by the dual role of the West. On the one hand, the West is at a peak of power. At the same time, a return-to-the-roots phenomenon is occurring among non-Western civilizations. A West at the peak of its power confronts non-Western countries that increasingly have the desire, the will and the resources to shape the world in non-Western ways.

Cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and economic ones.

Economic regionalism is increasing. Successful economic regionalism will reinforce civilization-consciousness. Economic regionalism may succeed only when it is rooted in a common civilization.

The West versus the Rest

Huntington suggests that in the future the central axis of world politics tends to be the conflict between Western and non-Western civilizations, in Kishore Mahbubani‘s phrase, the conflict between “the West and the Rest.” He offers three forms of general actions that non-Western civilization can take in response to Western countries.[11]

Non-Western countries can attempt to achieve isolation in order to preserve their own values and protect themselves from Western invasion. However, Huntington argues that the costs of this action are high and only a few states can pursue it.

According to the theory of “band-wagoning” non-Western countries can join and accept Western values.

Non-Western countries can make an effort to balance Western power through modernization. They can develop economic, military power and cooperate with other non-Western countries against the West while still preserving their own values and institutions. Huntington believes that the increasing power of non-Western civilizations in international society will make the West begin to develop a better understanding of the cultural fundamentals underlying other civilizations. Therefore, Western civilization will cease to be regarded as “universal” but different civilizations will learn to coexist and join to shape the future world.

Core state and fault line conflicts

In Huntington’s view, intercivilizational conflict manifests itself in two forms: fault line conflicts and core state conflicts.

Fault line conflicts are on a local level and occur between adjacent states belonging to different civilizations or within states that are home to populations from different civilizations.

Core state conflicts are on a global level between the major states of different civilizations. Core state conflicts can arise out of fault line conflicts when core states become involved.[12]

These conflicts may result from a number of causes, such as: relative influence or power (military or economic), discrimination against people from a different civilization, intervention to protect kinsmen in a different civilization, or different values and culture, particularly when one civilization attempts to impose its values on people of a different civilization.[12]

Modernization, westernization, and “torn countries”

Critics of Huntington’s ideas often extend their criticisms to traditionalcultures and internal reformers who wish to modernize without adopting the values and attitudes of Western culture. These critics[who?] sometimes claim that to modernize it is necessary to become Westernized to a very large extent, so that sources of tension with the West will be reduced.

Japan, China and the Four Asian Tigers have modernized in many respects while maintaining traditional or authoritarian societies which distinguish them from the West. Some of these countries have clashed with the West and some have not.

Perhaps the ultimate example of non-Western modernization is Russia, the core state of the Orthodox civilization. Huntington argues that Russia is primarily a non-Western state although he seems to agree that it shares a considerable amount of cultural ancestry with the modern West. According to Huntington, the West is distinguished from Orthodox Christian countries by its experience of the Renaissance, Reformation, the Enlightenment; by overseas colonialism rather than contiguous expansion and colonialism; and by the infusion of Classical culture through ancient Greece rather than through the continuous trajectory of the Byzantine Empire.

Huntington refers to countries that are seeking to affiliate with another civilization as “torn countries.” Turkey, whose political leadership has systematically tried to Westernize the country since the 1920s, is his chief example. Turkey’s history, culture, and traditions are derived from Islamic civilization, but Turkey’s elite, beginning with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who took power as first President in 1923, imposed western institutions and dress, embraced the Latin alphabet, joined NATO, and is seeking to join the European Union.

Mexico and Russia are also considered to be torn by Huntington. He also gives the example of Australia as a country torn between its Western civilizational heritage and its growing economic engagement with Asia.

According to Huntington, a torn country must meet three requirements to redefine its civilizational identity. Its political and economic elite must support the move. Second, the public must be willing to accept the redefinition. Third, the elites of the civilization that the torn country is trying to join must accept the country.

The book claims that to date no torn country has successfully redefined its civilizational identity, this mostly due to the elites of the ‘host’ civilization refusing to accept the torn country, though if Turkey gained membership in theEuropean Union, it has been noted that many of its people would support Westernization, as in the following quote by EU Minister Egemen Bağış: “This is what Europe needs to do: they need to say that when Turkey fulfills all requirements, Turkey will become a member of the EU on date X. Then, we will regain the Turkish public opinion support in one day.”[13] If this were to happen, it would, according to Huntington, be the first to redefine its civilizational identity.

Criticism

Huntington has fallen under the stern critique of various academic writers, who have either empirically, historically, logically, or ideologically challenged his claims (Fox, 2005; Mungiu Pippidi & Mindruta, 2002; Henderson & Tucker, 2001; Russett, Oneal, & Cox, 2000; Harvey, 2000).[14][15][16][17] In an article explicitly referring to Huntington, scholar Amartya Sen (1999) argues that “diversity is a feature of most cultures in the world. Western civilization is no exception. The practice of democracy that has won out in the modern West is largely a result of a consensus that has emerged since the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and particularly in the last century or so. To read in this a historical commitment of the West—over the millennia—to democracy, and then to contrast it with non-Western traditions (treating each as monolithic) would be a great mistake” (p. 16).[18]

In his 2003 book Terror and Liberalism, Paul Berman argues that distinct cultural boundaries do not exist in the present day. He argues there is no “Islamic civilization” nor a “Western civilization”, and that the evidence for a civilization clash is not convincing, especially when considering relationships such as that between the United States and Saudi Arabia. In addition, he cites the fact that many Islamic extremists spent a significant amount of time living and/or studying in the Western world. According to Berman, conflict arises because of philosophical beliefs various groups share (or do not share), regardless of cultural or religious identity.[19]

Edward Said issued a response to Huntington’s thesis in his 2001 article, “The Clash of Ignorance“.[20] Said argues that Huntington’s categorization of the world’s fixed “civilizations” omits the dynamic interdependency and interaction of culture. A longtime critic of the Huntingtonian paradigm, and an outspoken proponent of Arab issues, Edward Said (2004) also argues that the clash of civilizations thesis is an example of “the purest invidious racism, a sort of parody of Hitlerian science directed today against Arabs and Muslims” (p. 293).[21]

Noam Chomsky has criticized the concept of the clash of civilizations as just being a new justification for the United States “for any atrocities that they wanted to carry out”, which was required after the Cold War as the Soviet Union was no longer a viable threat.[22]

Opposing concepts

Mohammad Khatami, reformistpresident of Iran (in office 1997–2005), introduced the theory of Dialogue Among Civilizations as a response to Huntington’s theory.

In recent years, the theory of Dialogue Among Civilizations, a response to Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, has become the center of some international attention. The concept was originally coined by Austrian philosopher Hans Köchler in an essay on cultural identity (1972).[23] In a letter to UNESCO, Köchler had earlier proposed that the cultural organization of the United Nations should take up the issue of a “dialogue between different civilizations” (dialogue entre les différentes civilisations).[24] In 2001, Iranian president Mohammad Khatamiintroduced the concept at the global level. At his initiative, the “dialogue among civilizations” was the basis for United Nations’ resolution to name the year 2001 as the Year of Dialogue among Civilizations.[25][26] The year 2001 was proclaimed as the “United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations”.[27]

Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician best known for his intense criticism of Islam, has stated on several occasions that there is a clash between Western civilization and barbarism, referring to Islam.[28][29][30]

Intermediate Region

Huntington’s geopolitical model, especially the structures for North Africa and Eurasia, is largely derived from the “Intermediate Region” geopolitical model first formulated by Dimitri Kitsikisand published in 1978.[31] The Intermediate Region, which spans the Adriatic Sea and the Indus River, is neither western nor eastern (at least, with respect to the Far East) but is considered distinct.

Concerning this region, Huntington departs from Kitsikis contending that a civilizational fault line exists between the two dominant yet differing religions (Eastern Orthodoxy and Sunni Islam), hence a dynamic of external conflict. However, Kitsikis establishes an integrated civilization comprising these two peoples along with those belonging to the less dominant religions of Shia Islam, Alevism, and Judaism. They have a set of mutual cultural, social, economic and political views and norms which radically differ from those in the West and the Far East.

In the Intermediate Region, therefore, one cannot speak of a civilizational clash or external conflict, but rather an internal conflict, not for cultural domination, but for political succession. This has been successfully demonstrated by documenting the rise of Christianity from the hellenized Roman Empire, the rise of the Islamic caliphates from the Christianized Roman Empire and the rise of Ottoman rule from the Islamic caliphates and the Christianized Roman Empire.

CNN’s Cuomo comes right out and admits it: ‘We couldn’t help Hillary any more than we have’

Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BizPac Review.

It’s no secret that CNN and pretty much the entire American media, save Fox News, is sold out for Hillary Clinton.

Witness CNN’s Chris Cuomo, the man who called Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort a liar and debated Rudy Giuliani for 32 break-less minutes on the ridiculous liberal interpretation of Trump’s Second Amendment statement, wax eloquent during a 2014 segment during which he and another host were discussing Clinton’s potential entry into the race.

“It’s a problem because she’s doing what they call in politics “freezing pockets,” because the donors are giving her money thinking she’s going to run, that means they’re not going to have available money for other candidates if she doesn’t.” Cuomo said. “And I don’t think she’s going to give it to them. We couldn’t help her any more than we have, she’s got just a free ride so far from the media, we’re the biggest ones promoting her campaign, so it had better happen.

Hey, at least he’s being honest, for once. Regardless if it hurts them in the ratings, because it clearly has, the liberal media is determined to ride that broken down mule all the way to the halls of power because, for them, ideology is what matters, and theirs is the clearly the ideology of the Left.

When a presidential race rages out of control

By Wesley Pruden – The Washington Times – Thursday, August 11, 2016

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

It’s the conceit of every generation that horses have never been faster, whisky has never been older, beautiful women have never been younger — and politics have never been rowdier. But maybe our generation has a legitimate claim.

The clown vs. the crook, the vulgarian vs. the witch, both stained worthies that neither party wants. One is a big talker who can’t keep his mouth shut and his tongue at ease, the other driven by greed, lies and avarice, ever on the scout for loose valuables. Has the republic ever had such a choice?

Well, politics were particularly rowdy in the decades after the War of Northern Aggression, and rarely rowdier than in the year 1884, with Gov. Grover Cleveland of New York, the Democrat, suiting up against James G. Blaine of Maine, the Republican. The Democrats rehashed old allegations of bribes, graft and grease suborned by Blaine, the man in the pocket of railroad barons, the Wall Street villains of his day. Like a presidential candidate we could name, Blaine didn’t brook allegations of sordid behavior but haughtily dismissed them as “stale slander.” This gave Democrats the famous rallying cry, “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine.” Not quite as to the point as “lock her up!” But it stirred the masses.

For his part, Cleveland, a Presbyterian preacher’s son of starchy upright reputation, was accused of fathering an illegitimate child when practicing law in Buffalo. (A preacher’s son misbehaving? A naughty lawyer? Surely not.) The woman was a lady of wide acquaintance, and Cleveland, the only bachelor in the circle of usual suspects, manned up, and unlike another president we could name, took responsibility for his sporting life, and paid child support. But in turn the Democrats accused Blaine and the missus of not having been married when their eldest child was born. Bastardy was not fashionable in that backward day, and the rumor was disproved only after the sell-by date.

Passion is as passion does, and we’ve seen passion aplenty already in this campaign, and the campaign doesn’t even officially begin until Labor Day. Rage has replaced mere rowdiness as the fuel of presidential politics. “Anger is all the way around in this cycle,” Bart Rossi, a “political psychologist” tells CBS News. “People sometimes feel a rage, an anger against someone or something, and they act impulsively. In this case, Trump really kind of ‘gets’ you, really agitates some people to act out impulsively and that retained anger shows up.”

Hillary really “gets” a lot of other people. A Pennsylvania woman painted the broad side of her barn as an enormous American flag, and nearby spelled “Trump” in letters the size of a boxcar. “Sometimes we’ll get a lot of honks and waves, and sometimes I’ll get a thumb’s down, but we’ll just wave back, anyway.”

Our number-crunchers found the networks gave Trump’s “Second Amendment” crack about stopping Hillary-nominated judges drew five times as much air time as Hillary’s embarrassment when the father of mass-murdering Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen showed up behind her on TV at a Florida rally.

Guess what? The nation’s top newspapers were even worse in demonstrating a double standard on these two bad-news moments from the campaign trail in their Wednesday editions.

The New York Times printed a 1,287-word article at the top right of the front page headlined (all caps) “TRUMP SUGGESTS GUN OWNERS ACT AGAINST CLINTON: ALARM AT HIS REMARK.” Just to the left of that on top of the front page was an article headlined “G.O.P. Women Are Retreating From Nominee.” The Times also wrote a scathing staff editorial leading that page with the headline “Further Into the Muck With Mr. Trump.”

But the Times offered absolutely nothing in the print edition on Mr. Mateen, dismissing the story in a 440-word feature online by Matt Flegenheimer with the headline “Clinton Campaign Plays Down Appearance at Rally by Orlando Gunman’s Father.”

The Washington Post wasn’t much better. Like the Times, it plopped the Trump story on top right of Page One, a 1,409-word story headlined “Trump decried for gun remark: Critics see his comments on 2nd Amendment as a threat against Clinton.” Also like the Times, its lead staff editorial piled on, with the headline “An ugly call to ‘Second Amendment people’: Mr. Trump seems to offer a veiled threat in comments about Mrs. Clinton and gun rights.”

So where was the story on Papa Mateen in the Post? There wasn’t a story. On the back page came an article byAnne Gearan headlined “Clinton prods GOP congressional leaders to take emergency action on Zika.” In the sixth paragraph of the Zika article, the Post offered a measly two sentences adding up to 54 words:

Separately, the Clinton campaign said it was unaware that Seddique Mateen, the father of the suspect in the June mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub, secured a prime seat at a Clinton rally on Monday in Kissimmee, near Orlando. Mateen told Florida television station WPTV that he had been “invited by the Democratic Party.”

The Trump story carried over to the back page, where the Post reprinted the 41-word Trump ‘Second Amendment people’ quote in headline-size type, taking up about 24 column inches of space.

The Post’s free tabloid Express also showed the double standard. It published a 16-paragraph version of the regular front-page article on Trump, and only ran a 20-word “Verbatim” quote from Papa Mateen at the bottom of the same page (13). The quote was “Clinton is good for the United States, versus Donald Trump…I was invited by the Democratic Party. I’m a member.” Aligned next to the Trump story on page 13 was a five-paragraph story on how Hillary is spending more than $13 million in political ads on the Olympics broadcasts while Trump airs nothing.

USA Today isn’t exactly in the same territory. They offered a front-page story on Trump’s Second Amendment remarks, as well as a front-page story headlined “Never Trump Ranks Grow.”

There was also an article of some depth on the Mateen embarrassment…but not by a news reporter. It was a column on the editorial page by conservative “Instapundit” blogger/professor Glenn Reynolds.

The Wall Street Journal posted a front-page article Wednesday headlined “New Flap for Trump Over Gun Comments” that went on for 29 paragraphs on how “Trump touched off another firestorm Tuesday.” The Wednesday paper had no article on Seddique Mateen. Late on Wednesday night, the Journal posted an article on Trump pointing out the Mateen problem, then added the liberal retort on former Congressman Mark Foley in Trump’s TV picture on Wednesday.

There is no such thing as Pro-Trump free speech as Clinton corporate allies serve up a carefully curated view of the campaign

By Liz Crokin

My dad always told me that conservative candidates have to work twice as hard as their liberal opponents to win elections because they’re fighting two opponents: the Democratic Party and the media.

The usual suspects from left-leaning major media outlets like The New York Times, MSNBC, CNN and even entertainment networks are doing everything in their power to ensure a Clinton victory. Look no further than to Wolf Blitzermincingaround and drinking wine at the Democratic convention, celebrating Hillary’s nomination. But the propaganda skewing this election runs much deeper than just the media: our iPhones, iPads, social media networks, Google and even video games are all in the tank for Hillary Clinton—and it’s chilling.

I began looking into how strong the bias and censorship runs in these forums after I did an interview on the pro-Trump podcast, MAGAPod. The show’s host, Mark Hammond, was disappointed Apple wouldn’t run his show without an “explicit” warning. Hammond’s podcast didn’t contain content that would be deemed explicit under Apple’s policy, and most other shows in the News & Politics category aren’t labeled as such.

On June 18, Hammond talked to Sandra, a representative from Apple. She explained that, since the description of his show is pro-Trump, his show is explicit in nature—because the subject matter is Donald Trump. So, an Apple employee concluded the Republican presidential candidate is explicit.

iTunes has dozens of podcasts discussing Osama Bin Laden and Adolf Hitler—none of which is marked explicit. I encouraged Hammond to contact Apple again, via email to their podcast support team. Within 48 hours he received a response from “Tim,” who informed Hammond that his podcast would be updated to “clean” within 24 hours.

Further digging on Apple revealed more evidence that the computer giant is feeding users pro-Hillary and anti-Trump propaganda.

Over the past year, Apple twice refused to publish a satirical Clinton Emailgate game, “Capitol HillAwry,” claiming it was “offensive” and “mean spirited” even though the game’s developer, John Matze, cited in communications with Apple that the game fits the standards of Apple’s own satire policy. Apple has, however, approved dozens of games poking fun at Donald Trump—including a game called “Dump Trump,” which depicts the GOP nominee as a giant turd.

On July 25, Breitbart exposed this blatant double standard and favoritism toward Clinton. A few days after the article was released, Apple caved and published Capitol HillAwry, 15 months after Matze’s first attempt to go live.

While it’s commendable that Apple resolved both situations, Trump supporters and conservative users should never have faced such biased treatment in the first place.

Around the same time I was a guest on MAGAPod, a friend complained to me about how biased his Apple News feed is against Trump. I set up an Apple News account on my iPhone.

And if there are articles above the fold from more right-leaning sites? They paint Trump in a negative light and Hillary in a positive light. Of all the channels listed in the Apple News politics section, only two of the 16 arguably lean right—the rest are reliably left-wing.

This has, of course, been pointed out before, and anyone with an iPhone or iPad can go to Apple News to determine on his or her own if Apple is pushing leftist propaganda. Apple claims not to endorse candidates, but their actions suggest otherwise, and some of their executives—including CEO Tim Cook—actively support Clinton’s campaign. Buzzfeed recently obtained an invitation to a private $50,000-per-plate fundraiser Cook is hosting for Clinton with his Apple colleague, Lisa Jackson, at the end of this month.

Apple isn’t the only corporation doing Clinton’s bidding. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said Clinton made a deal with Google and that the tech giant is “directly engaged” in her campaign. It’s been widely reported Clinton hired Eric Schmidt—chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google—to set up a tech company called The Groundwork. Assange claims this was to ensure Clinton had the “engineering talent to win the election.” He also pointed out that many members of Clinton’s staff have worked for Google, and some of her former employees now work at Google.

So it should come as no surprise that there have been multiple reports accusing Google of manipulating searches to bury negative stories about Clinton.SourceFed details how Google alters its auto-complete functions to paint Clinton in a positive light.

For example, when you type “Hillary Clinton cri” into other engines like Yahoo! or Bing, the most popular autofills are “Hillary Clinton criminal charges” but in Google it’s “Hillary Clinton crime reform.” Google denies they changed their algorithm to help Clinton, and insists the company does not favor any candidate. They also claim their algorithms don’t show predicted queries that are offensive or disparaging.

But Google has gotten into hot water on multiple occasions for connecting Trump to Adolf Hitler. In June, when users searched “when Hitler was born” it generated the expected information on Hitler but also an image of Trump. In July, searches for Trump’s book, Crippled America, returned images of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kempf. Google has since fixed both—but again, why do these issues always conveniently disparage Trump and help Clinton?

Twitter is another culprit. The company has gotten a lot of slack for banning conservatives and Trump supporters such as Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos and, most recently, rapper Azealia Banks after she came out in support of Trump. Twitter has provided vague answers as to why conservative voices have been banned while they’ve allowed other users to call for the killing of cops.

Just yesterday, Buzzfeed revealed that the social media giant’s top executive personally protected the President from seeing critical messages last year. “In 2015, then-Twitter CEO Dick Costolo secretly ordered employees to filter out abusive and hateful replies to President Barack Obama.”

This year, Twitter isn’t just banning conservatives—the platform also changed its algorithms to promote Clinton while giving negative exposure to Trump.

The founders of some of the most popular pro-Trump Twitter handles—including @USAforTrump2016 and @WeNeedTrump—insist Twitter is censoring their content. They’ve pointed out that Twitter changes trending hashtags associated with negative tweets about Clinton (which has been reported before). On August 4, shortly after the hashtag “HillaryAccomplishment” began trending, it was taken over by anti-Clinton users, who used it to mention Benghazi or Emailgate. Eric Spracklen, @USAforTrump2016 founder, noticed the hashtag was quickly changed—pluralized to #HillarysAccomplishments.

“They take away the hashtag that has negative tweets for Clinton and replace it with something that doesn’t so the average person doesn’t see what was really trending,” Spracklen said. “This happens every day.”

Jack Murphy, founder of @WeNeedTrump, says followers complain they often aren’t able to retweet his pro-Trump tweets.

Instagram has also banned accounts that depict Clinton in a negative light. In June, a conservative comedy group called Toughen Up America was banned with no warning or explanation. Last week, the popular Australian-based graffiti artist, Lushsux, was banned from Instagram after he posted photos of a bikini-clad Clinton mural he painted.

“I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist with a tin foil hat, but the timing of the Hillary Clinton mural posting and the deletion that ensued can’t just be a coincidence,” he told the Daily Mail Australia. Lushsux has posted photos of way more graphic murals, including a topless Melania Trump and a naked Donald with his package in full sight. These images did not trigger any censorship from Instagram.

Facebook has a long history of shutting down pages and blocking conservative users while promoting progressive voices like Black Lives Matter activists. The problem became so transparent that Sen. John Thune sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking him to explain their practices.

Facebook denies it discriminates against “any sources of ideological origin” and Zuckerberg did meet with conservatives in an attempt to resolve this issue. While some walked away from the meeting encouraged that Zuckerberg wants to repair their relationship, other prominent conservatives rejected the invitation as a publicity stunt. It should be noted that Facebook employees have donated more to Clinton than to any other candidate.

Many conservatives have come to expect this kind of thing from the mainstream media. CNN, which paints itself as the centrist antidote to right-leaning Fox News and left-leaning MSNBC, has actually been among the most disingenuous offenders during this cycle, fully earning its derisive nickname “Clinton News Network.” For example, as NewsBusters pointed out for just one day, “CNN set aside nearly half of its air time on Wednesday’s New Day to various recent controversies involving the Trump campaign — 1 hour, 24 minutes, and 18 seconds over three hours. By contrast, the program clearly didn’t think much of the Wall Street Journal‘s revelationthat the Obama administration secretly airlifted $400 million in cash to Iran. John Berman gave a 27-second news brief to the report, but didn’t mention that the payment was sent on “an unmarked cargo plane.” New Day, therefore, devoted over 187 times more coverage to Trump than to the millions to Iran.”

Another favored CNN trick is to present a “balanced” panel comprised of two Republicans, two Democrats and a host, as they did on the afternoon of July 29, just to name one instance of a hundred. However, the Republican side always features one Trump supporter and one “Never Trump” Republican, with the host grilling the Trump Supporter—often a beleaguered Jeffrey Lord—in what amounts to a 4-on-1. So much for balance.

Right now, CNN has a story on its site called “Which Republicans oppose Trump and why?” There’s no corresponding story about Democrats who oppose Clinton, even though her underdog challenger in the primary lasted far longer and received far more votes than any of Trump’s Republican challengers.

No Republican willing to criticize Trump is too insignificant to merit coverage on CNN. When a minor Christie staffer announced on her personal Facebook that she’d be backing Hillary, she somehow merited a 1200 word story on CNN’s website and euphoric coverage on the air by Brooke Baldwin for “splitting with her party.”

So that’s the traditional media. But this new strand, where one cannot even search for alternative viewpoints amid technology companies who stand to benefit from the free-trade policies and eased immigration regulations of a Clinton presidence, represents a dangerous sea change. There’s absolutely no question the digital forums we use every day are censoring conservatives and favoring Clinton. You can’t simply scroll through photos on Instagram, look for a video game in the App Store or do a quick Google search without being fed anti-Trump and pro-Clinton propaganda.

These companies are engaging in activity that can quickly lead down a very dangerous slippery slope and this should concern all freedom-loving Americans—not just conservatives. If you don’t know when the election is, no problem! Just Google it and see for yourself what comes up…

How Global Elites Forsake Their Countrymen

Those in power see people at the bottom as aliens whose bizarre emotions they must try to manage.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses the refugee crisis, Sept 7, 2015. E

By PEGGY NOONAN Aug. 11, 2016

This is about distance, and detachment, and a kind of historic decoupling between the top and the bottom in the West that did not, in more moderate recent times, exist.

Recently I spoke with an acquaintance of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and the conversation quickly turned, as conversations about Ms. Merkel now always do, to her decisions on immigration. Last summer when Europe was engulfed with increasing waves of migrants and refugees from Muslim countries, Ms. Merkel, moving unilaterally, announced that Germany would take in an astounding 800,000. Naturally this was taken as an invitation, and more than a million came. The result has been widespread public furor over crime, cultural dissimilation and fears of terrorism. From such a sturdy, grounded character as Ms. Merkel the decision was puzzling—uncharacteristically romantic about people, how they live their lives, and history itself, which is more charnel house than settlement house.

Ms. Merkel’s acquaintance sighed and agreed. It’s one thing to be overwhelmed by an unexpected force, quite another to invite your invaders in! But, the acquaintance said, he believed the chancellor was operating in pursuit of ideals. As the daughter of a Lutheran minister, someone who grew up in East Germany, Ms. Merkel would have natural sympathy for those who feel marginalized and displaced. Moreover she is attempting to provide a kind of counter-statement, in the 21st century, to Germany’s great sin of the 20th. The historical stain of Nazism, the murder and abuse of the minority, will be followed by the moral triumph of open arms toward the dispossessed. That’s what’s driving it, said the acquaintance.

It was as good an explanation as I’d heard. But there was a fundamental problem with the decision that you can see rippling now throughout the West. Ms. Merkel had put the entire burden of a huge cultural change not on herself and those like her but on regular people who live closer to the edge, who do not have the resources to meet the burden, who have no particular protection or money or connections. Ms. Merkel, her cabinet and government, the media and cultural apparatus that lauded her decision were not in the least affected by it and likely never would be.

Nothing in their lives will get worse. The challenge of integrating different cultures, negotiating daily tensions, dealing with crime and extremism and fearfulness on the street—that was put on those with comparatively little, whom I’ve called the unprotected. They were left to struggle, not gradually and over the years but suddenly and in an air of ongoing crisis that shows no signs of ending—because nobody cares about them enough to stop it.
The powerful show no particular sign of worrying about any of this. When the working and middle class pushed back in shocked indignation, the people on top called them “xenophobic,” “narrow-minded,” “racist.” The detached, who made the decisions and bore none of the costs, got to be called “humanist,” “compassionate,” and “hero of human rights.”

And so the great separating incident at Cologne last New Year’s, and the hundreds of sexual assaults by mostly young migrant men who were brought up in societies where women are veiled—who think they should be veiled—and who chose to see women in short skirts and high heels as asking for it.

Cologne of course was followed by other crimes.

The journalist Chris Caldwell reports in the Weekly Standard on Ms. Merkel’s statement a few weeks ago, in which she told Germans that history was asking them to “master the flip side, the shadow side, of all the positive effects of globalization.”

Caldwell: “This was the chancellor’s . . . way of acknowledging that various newcomers to the national household had begun to attack and kill her voters at an alarming rate.” Soon after her remarks, more horrific crimes followed, including in Munich (nine killed in a McDonald’s) Reutlingen (a knife attack) and Ansbach (a suicide bomber).

***
The larger point is that this is something we are seeing all over, the top detaching itself from the bottom, feeling little loyalty to it or affiliation with it. It is a theme I see working its way throughout the West’s power centers. At its heart it is not only a detachment from, but a lack of interest in, the lives of your countrymen, of those who are not at the table, and who understand that they’ve been abandoned by their leaders’ selfishness and mad virtue-signalling.

On Wall Street, where they used to make statesmen, they now barely make citizens. CEOs are consumed with short-term thinking, stock prices, quarterly profits. They don’t really believe that they have to be involved with “America” now; they see their job as thinking globally and meeting shareholder expectations.

In Silicon Valley the idea of “the national interest” is not much discussed. They adhere to higher, more abstract, more global values. They’re not about America, they’re about . . . well, I suppose they’d say the future.

In Hollywood the wealthy protect their own children from cultural decay, from the sick images they create for all the screens, but they don’t mind if poor, unparented children from broken-up families get those messages and, in the way of things, act on them down the road.

From what I’ve seen of those in power throughout business and politics now, the people of your country are not your countrymen, they’re aliens whose bizarre emotions you must attempt occasionally to anticipate and manage.

In Manhattan, my little island off the continent, I see the children of the global business elite marry each other and settle in London or New York or Mumbai. They send their children to the same schools and are alert to all class markers. And those elites, of Mumbai and Manhattan, do not often identify with, or see a connection to or an obligation toward, the rough, struggling people who live at the bottom in their countries. In fact, they fear them, and often devise ways, when home, of not having their wealth and worldly success fully noticed.
Affluence detaches, power adds distance to experience. I don’t have it fully right in my mind but something big is happening here with this division between the leaders and the led. It is very much a feature of our age. But it is odd that our elites have abandoned or are abandoning the idea that they belong to a country, that they have ties that bring responsibilities, that they should feel loyalty to their people or, at the very least, a grounded respect.

I close with a story that I haven’t seen in the mainstream press. This week the Daily Caller’s Peter Hasson reported that recent Syrian refugees being resettled in Virginia, were sent to the state’s poorest communities. Data from the State Department showed that almost all Virginia’s refugees since October “have been placed in towns with lower incomes and higher poverty rates, hours away from the wealthy suburbs outside of Washington, D.C.” Of 121 refugees, 112 were placed in communities at least 100 miles from the nation’s capital. The suburban counties of Fairfax, Loudoun and Arlington—among the wealthiest in the nation, and home to high concentrations of those who create, and populate, government and the media—have received only nine refugees.

Some of the detachment isn’t unconscious. Some of it is sheer and clever self-protection. At least on some level they can take care of their own.

Story 1: Leading From Behind and Strategic Patience — Obama’s Total Failed Foreign Policy Disaster — No Leadership, No Guts, No Strategy — Obama The Empty Suit — Putin Resets The Middle East — Trump Strategy For Syria, Islamic State and Islamic Republic of Iran — Videos

Russia hits ISIS from Caspian Sea

Four Russian cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea fell short of their Syrian targets and landed in a rural part of Iran, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The errant missiles were part of a volley of 26 long range cruise missiles that Russians fired from ships in the Caspian Sea a day earlier, according to officials who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss intelligence matters.

The Russians fired Kalibir cruise missiles, which had not yet been used in combat conditions. The flight path took the missiles over Iran and Iraq. One U.S. official said they had not been able to detect any casualties or damage from the strikes, suggesting they may have fallen harmlessly in a rural part of Iran.

The development comes amid growing concerns about Russian actions in the region. The Russians have launched airstrikes in Syria, saying they are attacking terrorists. Washington and its allies have accused Russia of trying to prop up the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter warned Thursday that Russia will soon experience consequences as it ramps up its military campaign in Syria. “In the coming days, the Russians will begin to suffer from casualties,” he said.

Syria crisis Russian missiles ‘fell on Iran’

Russia Launches Missile Strikes In Syria

Cruise missile attack from Caspian sea – Russian Navy fires on ISIS

Ralph Peters: The time for a no-fly zone in Syria has come and gone.

U.S. diverting aircrafts over Syria

Russia fires missiles from warships into Syria

Iran Hit by Russian Cruise Missiles Intended for Syria

Four Syria-Bound Russian Missiles Crashed in Iran, U.S. Officials Say

Jim Lindsay focuses on the relationship between foreign policy and domestic political considerations at the Council on Foreign Relations. He considers the domestic political fall-out from Obama’s Iran deal and the failed policies in Syria, and shares with Jim Zirin that it is too early to tell whether these factors will affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Trump says US does not win wars anymore, calls for a change

Is Obama’s foreign policy doctrine working?

Stephanopoulos to Obama: Are You Failing By Your Own Foreign Policy Standards?

Syrian forces begin ground offensive backed by Russia air and sea power

By Andrew Roth and Erin Cunningham

Russia’s Caspian Sea fleet on Wednesday launched a complex cruise missile strike against Syrian rebels from nearly 1,000 miles away, a potent exhibition of Moscow’s firepower as it backs a government offensive in Syria’s multi-faction civil war.

The bombardment was the first naval salvo of Russia’s week-old military intervention in Syria, where it has already launched more than 100 airstrikes against the Islamic State and factions of Islamist and U.S.-backed rebel forces opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.

The attack showcased Russia’s advanced military capabilities and closer coordination with the governments of Iran and Iraq, whose airspace the missiles traversed before striking targets in Syria held by the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, an affiliate of al-Qaeda.

Like Russia, Iran is a key backer of Assad. Iraq’s leadership has close ties with Iran but also depends on support from the United States and Western allies.

[Why Russia is in Syria]
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a nationally televised briefing that the ships launched 26 cruise missiles, destroying 11 targets and killing no civilians. He also said that Russian planes continued to carry out airstrikes Wednesday.

The naval strikes on Wednesday were the first known operational use of state-of-the-art SSN-30A Kalibr cruise missiles, which were still being tested by the Russian navy in August.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the strikes spoke to the professionalism of Russia’s revamped army.

“We know how difficult it is to carry out this kind of anti-terrorist operation,” Putin told Shoigu. “Of course, it is early to draw conclusions. But what has been done so far deserves a highly positive assessment.”

The strikes came as Syrian troops backed by Russian air power launched their first major ground offensive since Moscow began its intervention in the conflict Sept. 30.

News reports and video of fighting uploaded to the Internet on Wednesday showed that the Syrian army was moving from the city of Hama toward Idlib, a stronghold held by a coalition of mostly Islamist rebels.
While the Kremlin’s stated aim in the conflict is to fight the Islamic State in Syria, the United States and its allies say Russia is concentrating its firepower against other rebel groups to prevent Assad from being overrun. One video on Wednesday appeared to show the Free Syrian Army, a moderate force backed by the West, firing anti­tank missiles at government troops advancing with Russian air support.

Ground level: On the scene of controversial Russian airstrikes in Syria
View Photos The actions, quickly criticized by Washington, add an unpredictable element to a multilayered war.
“Russia is targeting civilians and the Free Syrian Army brigades that are supported by America. They are not targeting the Islamic State as they claimed,” said Raed Fares, a Syrian activist in Idlib. “Russia is here to keep Assad in power, so they will strike what Assad strikes.”

In televised remarks on Wednesday, Putin encouraged the Free Syrian Army to join an alliance with Assad’s troops against the Islamic State. At the same time, he belittled the influence of moderate rebels on the conflict.

“True, we don’t currently know where it is and who is leading it,” Putin said of the Free Syrian Army.

[These are the cruise missiles Russia just sent into Syria]

Russian news reports Wednesday said Syrian forces launched a heavy artillery bombardment and were moving toward Idlib, but they added that it was not yet clear how far the Syrian troops had advanced.

The news reports also said Syrian troops used advanced rocket-launch systems similar to the ones that Western officials say Moscow shipped to Syria last week.

In a video posted to YouTube from the town of Kafranboudah, in the western part of the Hama countryside, a Syrian rebel commander said government forces­ began shelling his unit’s position on the front line early Wednesday. Kafranboudah is about 16 miles east of Latakia province, a Syrian regime stronghold. More than a dozen rebel groups formed a coalition to oust government forces­ from Hama in August.

Regime soldiers on Wednesday stormed the town from three sides with Russian air support, the rebel commander said, and the fighting has extended nearly 20 miles southeast to the town of Maan. He did not say whether his fighters suffered any losses­ but said Syrian rebels destroyed at least four regime tanks with anti­tank missiles.
The West, which has launched more than 7,000 airstrikes against the Islamic State in the past year, has bristled at Moscow’s military build­up in Syria. Russia has deployed surface-to-air missiles, fighter jets and radar-jamming equipment that officials say is meant to interfere with Western forces.

On Tuesday, U.S. and Russian officials tentatively agreed to resume talks on how to coordinate in the skies over Syria. Turkey, a NATO member that shares a border with Syria, has already accused Russia of violating its airspace.

In Rome, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter did not respond directly when asked by reporters about the Russian military’s apparent support for the Syrian government’s ground offensive.

But the Pentagon chief for the first time ruled out any cooperation with Moscow in the fight against the Islamic State, saying that Russia’s strategy was clearly just to support Assad and his government.

“We believe Russia has the wrong strategy. They continue to hit targets that are not ISIL. This is a fundamental mistake,” Carter said, using one of the acronyms for the Islamic State.

In the past, the Obama administration has publicly held out hope — however faint — that Moscow might cooperate in the military campaign against the Islamic State.

In his most hard-line comments to date about Russia, Carter rejected the possibility of teaming up with the Russians in that regard. He said the Pentagon still wanted to talk with Moscow about finding ways to manage the crowded airspace above Syria and avoid any hostile or inadvertent encounters. “That’s it,” he said flatly.

There have been no reported close encounters or unsafe incidents involving U.S. and Russian warplanes so far in Syria, according to a senior U.S. defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.

Russian aircraft have “come closer” to U.S. drones on at least one occasion, the official said, but it was not a dangerous incident.

“Certainly they are in similar battle space, so they see each other and they are aware of each other,” the official said of Russian and U.S. warplanes.
Pentagon officials have said the Russian intervention in Syria has not forced the U.S. military or its coalition partners to alter the rate or location of their surveillance missions and airstrikes against the Islamic State.

The two sides have jousted in recent days over the conditions for holding another round of talks. Washington wants to limit the discussion to technical factors about aviation safety, while Moscow has said it wants a broader conversation about possibly coordinating military operations — something the Pentagon steadfastly opposes.

The senior U.S. defense official said the Pentagon drafted a document last week for the Russians that lays out “basic rules of flight conduct,” such as what language and radio frequencies pilots would use in a hostile or inadvertent encounter.

The Russians have not responded to any of the particulars, the official said.

Russia fires cruise missiles from warships into Syria

Russian warships in the Caspian Sea fired cruise missiles Wednesday as Syrian government troops launched a ground offensive in central Syria in the first major combined air-and-ground assault since Moscow began its military campaign in the country last week.

The missiles flew nearly 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) over Iran and Iraq and struck Raqqa and Aleppo provinces in the north and Idlib province in the northwest, Russian officials said. The Islamic State group has strongholds in Raqqa and Aleppo, while the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front has a strong presence in Idlib.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Russia was continuing to strike targets other than Islamic State militants, adding that he was concerned about the Syrian ground offensive backed by Moscow’s airpower.

The latest developments came a week after Russia began airstrikes in Syria, its longtime ally, on Sept. 30, and added a new dimension to the complex war that has torn apart the Mideast country since 2011.

Activists and rebels say the targets have included Western-backed fighters and other groups opposed to President Bashar Assad.

A Syrian official and activists said government troops pushed into areas in the central province of Hama and south of Idlib in the boldest multipronged attack on rebel-held areas, benefiting from the Russian air cover. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Moscow has mainly targeted central and northwestern Syria, strategic regions that are the gateway to Assad’s strongholds in Damascus, and along the Mediterranean coast where Russia has a naval base.

The Russian airstrikes strikes appear to have emboldened Syrian troops to launch the ground push after a series of setbacks in northwestern Syria in recent months.

The Islamic State group is not present in the areas where the ground fighting is underway.

The offensive in central Syria and the ensuing clashes with militants, including the Nusra Front, was the first major ground fighting since the Russian campaign began.

Appearing on television with President Vladimir Putin, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said 26 missile strikes were conducted from four warships in the Caspian. Shoigu insisted the operation destroyed all the targets and did not launch any strikes on civilian areas.

The launches marked the combat debut of the Russian Kalibr long-range cruise missiles, equivalent to U.S. Tomahawk missiles.

“The fact that we launched precision weapons from the Caspian Sea to the distance of about 1,500 kilometers and hit all the designated targets shows good work by military industrial plants and good skills of personnel,” Putin said.

Andrei Kartapolov of the Russian General Staff told Russian news agencies the strikes were planned so that the cruise missiles would fly “over unpopulated areas.” Shoigu also said Russia has carried out 112 airstrikes on IS positions since Sept. 30.

Iranian state TV, citing Russian media, reported that the Russian missiles flew through Iran’s airspace and hit targets in Syria.

“The Russian military operation in support of the Syrian army continued at new higher technological level,” said Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, adding that the Syrian army began an offensive “with our fire support.”

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a government offensive began early Wednesday on four fronts in Idlib and neighboring Hama provinces in what the group’s director Rami Abdurrahman called “the most intense fighting in months.”

In Syria, the leader of a U.S.-backed rebel group Tajammu Alezzah confirmed the ground offensive in a text message to The Associated Press, saying Russian and Iranian soldiers were involved in the operation.

Russian officials deny sending any ground troops to the battlefield. Iran has been bolstering Assad by sending weapons and advisers, and helping arrange the deployment of Shiite fighters from Iraq and Hezbollah, as well as sending financial aid.

Last month, an intelligence sharing center was set up in Baghdad by Russia, Iraq, Iran and Syria to coordinate efforts to combat the Islamic State group.

Maj. Jamil al-Saleh said the offensive, accompanied by air cover and shelling, came from three fronts, including Latamneh, north of Hama province where his Tajammu Alezzah group is based, and Kfar Zeita to the north. The offensive targeted rural areas of Hama and Idlib that are almost totally controlled by rebel groups, he said.

Activist Ahmad al-Ahmad, who is in Idlib, said government troops “heavily” shelled central areas after rebels attacked an army post and destroyed a tank. He said the advance covered an area of over 16 kilometers (10 miles), and was a coordinated, multipronged attack, the boldest in the area in months. The rebels repulsed government troops, al-Ahmad said.

The Observatory, which has a network of activists in Syria, said the main launching point for government forces was the town of Morek on a highway linking Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and its former commercial hub. Rebels have controlled areas on the highway since 2012.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said rebels were able to destroy two tanks and an armored personnel carrier in northern Hama province near Idlib. Video on social media by rebel fighters showed government tanks burning, apparently after being hit by U.S.-made TOW missiles.

The Observatory said 37 Russian air raids hit on Wednesday alone.

Syrian state TV quoted an unidentified Syrian military official as saying Russian warplanes attacked IS positions in the towns of Al-Bab and Deir Hafer in Aleppo province.

Two low-flying helicopters were seen in Morek but escaped militant fire, the Observatory said. It was not immediately clear if the pilots were Russians or Syrians. Assad’s air force has Russian-made helicopters.

Although the Islamic State has no presence in the areas hit by airstrikes Wednesday, the Nusra Front is active in central and northern parts of the country — as are the Western-backed rebels. Russian officials have said the Nusra Front is among the groups it is targeting.

At a news conference in Rome, Carter said the U.S.-led coalition that also is conducting airstrikes in Syria has not agreed to cooperate with Russia in the fight against the Islamic State, and no collaboration is possible as long as Moscow continues to hit other targets.

He said the U.S. will conduct basic, technical talks with Russia about efforts to ensure that flights over Syria are conducted safely and, “That’s it.”

Washington is not prepared to cooperate with Russia’s strategy that is “tragically flawed,” he said.

“They continue to hit targets that are not ISIL,” Carter said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. “We believe that is a fundamental mistake.”

Since September 2014, the coalition has been hitting Islamic State positions mostly in northern and eastern parts of Syria, as well as in Iraq. U.S. aircraft are still flying missions daily over Syria, the Pentagon said.

Russia’s entry into the crowded and sometimes uncoordinated air wars in Syria is making the U.S. increasingly nervous, reflecting concern at the Pentagon and in Europe about the risk of accidents or unintended conflict.

At least one U.S. military aircraft changed its route over Syria recently to avoid coming dangerously close to Russian warplanes, said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. He could not provide details, including how many times this has happened.

In Turkey, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu renewed criticism of Russia, insisting the airstrikes were mainly targeting the moderate Syrian opposition and thus helping strengthen IS. He urged Moscow to respect Turkey’s airspace, saying the country would not “make any concessions” on its border security.

A. Moscow has said they were Kalibr ship-launched cruise missiles, also known as 3M-14s or, in NATO parlance, SS-N-30s. They are a fairly recent addition to an established family of ship-launched missiles that are mostly intended for ship-to-ship or shorter-range missions. The new model, intended for land attacks, is reported to have a much longer range than its siblings, perhaps reaching 1,550 miles.

A. Unlike a ballistic missile, which is fired on a fairly simple high-altitude arc like a cannonball, a cruise missile does most of its flying horizontally at low altitude, like an airplane or a drone. The missiles can trace a complex flight paths, and some, like the Kalibr, are believed to accelerate to supersonic speeds as they approach their targets, making them hard to detect and intercept. Depending on their guidance systems, cruise missiles can be highly accurate, compared with ballistic missiles. But they are single-use weapons and are relatively complicated and expensive to manufacture.

Q.How was the strike launched?

A. The Defense Ministry said the missiles were fired from four ships in the Caspian Sea and flew across Iran and northern Iraq to reach their targets. Russia has maintained a naval flotilla in the Caspian — which is landlocked from the rest of the world’s seas — for nearly 300 years. The flotilla currently has no aircraft carriers or other large capital ships, but it has frigates and Buyan-class missile corvettes, including two that were commissioned just last year, the Grad Sviyazhsk and the Veliky Ustyug. Those two ships reportedly fired cruise missiles at sea targets during a major naval exercise last month.

Q. Does the United States use similar weapons?

A. Yes, frequently. The best-known American cruise missile, the Tomahawk, has been used in both Persian Gulf wars and against targets in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Libya, Yemen and most recently Syria.

Pentagon: Some Russian cruise missiles crashed in Iran

By Thomas Gibbons-Neff

Several cruise missiles fired from Russian ships at targets in Syria Wednesday crashed in Iran, according to Pentagon officials.

Twenty-six cruise missiles, launched from the Caspian Sea, traveled more than 900 miles over Iran and Iraq before hitting targets throughout Syria, according to a statement by the Russian Defense Ministry.

However, according to a senior U.S. defense official who requested anonymity to discuss intelligence matters Thursday, a few of the missiles did not make it to their intended targets.

Reports on Iranian TV indicated that an “unidentified flying object” had crashed and exploded in a village near near the Iranian city of Takab. A number of cows were killed in the ensuing blast.

While it is unclear what made the missiles crash, videos posted on social media showed them flying overhead at low altitude. While it is common for cruise missiles to fly low (to avoid radar detection), it can make traversing mountainous terrain perilous.
The Russian Defense Ministry in Wednesday’s statement however, said that the new Kalibr-NK cruise missiles all hit within nine feet of their intended targets. The strikes landed in Raqqa, Idlib and Aleppo provinces, and Russian officials said they destroyed Islamic State positions, including training camps and ammunition depots.

The Kalibr cruise missile is a relatively new addition to Russia’s arsenal, and according to IHS Jane’s analyst Jeremy Binnie, Wednesday’s launch was the first time the missile’s 900-plus-mile range had been made public.

[Russia declares partial victory in bombing campaign in Syria]

While cruise missiles are traditionally used at the beginning of bombing campaigns to hit multiple high-value targets simultaneously while avoiding radar detection and maintaining the element of surprise, Russia’s strikes did none of those things. Instead, Binnie believes, everything that was targeted by the Russian cruise missiles could have easily been hit by other Russian assets within Syria (more than 50 aircraft) or possibly by Russian ships in the Mediterranean Sea.
“I think if you look at what cruise missiles are traditionally used for . . . this isn’t one of those scenarios,” Binnie said. “Russia has been striking the [Islamic State] for more than a week, and the U.S. has been for more than a year.”
Binnie went on to say that the cruise missile strikes were probably a show of Russian military force and technology, noting that the ships that fired the missiles — mostly small missile corvettes — were intended to demonstrate that even the small ships in the Russian navy are stronger than they look.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the smaller ships that participated in the strikes are approximately 230 feet long and their primary weapon is the Kalibr cruise missile. The flagship of the strike group, the Dagestan, is 320 feet long and displaces 2,000 tons.